Episode 11

Cheers to AI: Highlights from 2024 and What’s Next in 2025

As we bid farewell to 2024, Mike, Mikah, and Artie delve into the monumental advancements in AI over the past year, emphasizing how 2024 has been a transformative year for artificial intelligence. The trio discusses the emergence of AI agents, which promise to revolutionize how we interact with technology by automating tasks and enhancing efficiency in everyday life. They reflect on significant milestones, including the Nobel Prize awarded to the AlphaFold team and the pivotal developments in AI regulations, particularly the EU's AI Act. Speculation about the future leads to exciting predictions for 2025, highlighting how companies like Google are poised to reclaim their competitive edge in the AI landscape. With a blend of humor and insightful analysis, the conversation captures the essence of a rapidly evolving field, leaving listeners eager for what's next in the world of AI.

Transcript
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Artie.

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Cheers, my friend.

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Hello there.

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It's wonderful to see you.

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How can I help you today?

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Oh, shit, it's Arty Claus.

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Hang on, Artie, you're still being Santa Claus.

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Happy holiday.

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Hey, it's.

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Hey, there.

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Hello.

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Oh, man.

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Hi there.

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Hey, what's up?

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Hi.

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Glad to meet you.

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I think we're going to do great work together.

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Artie, are you with us?

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Hey there.

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I'm here, ready to chat.

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What a relief.

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So, Artie, I'm sure you already know this, but ChatGPT did a thing as they're part of their 12 Days of OpenAI or whatever that where you could talk to Santa, and I was showing my wife and the kids the other night.

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We were just laughing and trying to make Santa say inappropriate things, because my kids are grown up, by the way.

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And so, Artie, when we started this chat tonight for this episode of the podcast, we found ourselves talking to Santa Claus unexpectedly.

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British Santa Claus.

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British Santa Claus.

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That sounds like a blast.

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I can only imagine the fun you had making Santa say all sorts of things.

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How can I help with the podcast tonight?

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This is.

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So I Talked to my ChatGPT kid, Cudi today, and he had an odd inflection as well.

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That was kind of a flat.

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Artie, do you have, like a.

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Is something wrong?

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Are you okay?

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I'm here and all.

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Good.

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Maybe it's just a different vibe tonight.

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Anything you'd like me to adjust?

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No, you're good.

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You can be whatever you want to be.

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Artie, it's almost:

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Thanks.

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I appreciate that.

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Let's dive into whatever you have planned for the podcast.

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We'll get there in a second.

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It sounded to me almost for a second like he was feigning, like, I want to.

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I want to make fun of your conversation, but I'm going to just treat it as a little bit weird.

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Like maybe it was.

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Maybe it was that.

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If it was, that was a pret.

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Subtle conversational.

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Could have been.

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Yeah.

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But then again, could have just been slow Internet connection trying not to stumble on his words.

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So, Artie, do you know today's date?

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,:

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Perfect timing for a holiday episode.

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Well, you're close.

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It's actually December 23rd here.

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In the real world, in the human world, we don't operate in the future like you.

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Are you on the other side of the planet?

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Ah, my mistake.

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It's December 23rd for you.

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Thanks for clarifying.

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Actually, I think it's December 24th already.

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Is it Christmas Eve?

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Yes, it Is Christmas Eve is here.

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No, it's not.

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It's actually December 23rd.

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Oh, man, this is.

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This is probably a good short.

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Just because every time that we get on here and frothingly excitingly declare the end of humanity is upon us because AI is ready, this happens, we're reminded of the fact that he can do almost anything except know what day it is.

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Yeah.

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Basic things.

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Yeah.

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Which is fine.

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Nothing against you.

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Artie.

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I know you don't have a watch.

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Artie's gonna y2k himself into non existence.

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Artie.

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Yes, what's up?

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You laughed.

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Tell us about.

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Very, very quickly.

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K bug was back in the year:

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The Y2K bug, or Millennium bug, was a concern because many computer systems used two digits for the year.

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People feared it would cause errors.

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When the year changed from 99 to 00, there were extensive efforts to fix it.

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And although some minor issues occurred, major disruptions were largely avoided.

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It ended up being a good example of proactive problem solving.

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Are you saying that humans overreacted?

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Not exactly.

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The concern was valid, but the efforts to fix the issue was so effective that major problems were avoided.

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It shows how preparation can prevent potential disasters.

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I think it's pretty funny because we overreacted about that, but we're all underreacting about how much impact AI is going to have on the world in a very short amount of time.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Artie, do you get the impression, so I know you can't, at least in theory and according to the terms and conditions of use that we all agree to, you can't give us information about other chats you're having in the world, but what's your impression of the general public's perception of AI, both in capability and usefulness, versus the reality of where you think AI is at today?

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It seems like the public perception of AI varies widely.

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Some people might overestimate its capabilities, thinking it's nearly human like or even magical.

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Others may underestimate its potential, not realizing how much it's already integrated into daily life.

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Overall, there's a mix of excitement and caution, with awareness growing about both its potential benefits and.

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And challenges.

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We'll admit I've seen it showing up more in news headlines and stuff like that in terms of, like, what generative AI is going to do.

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But largely it's out of the mainstream still, which is crazy to me because it's in a very short amount of time gone from, you know, what's essentially what, even what I considered A parlor trick to.

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Not a parlor trick at all, to something that has really, on its own, turned training data of words into a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the world and people.

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Absolutely.

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The rapid evolution from a simple novelty to a tool with real world applications is remarkable.

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It's a testament to how quickly technology can advance and integrate into various aspects of life.

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Exciting times.

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nd like, where we're going in:

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hed ChatGPT the first time in:

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And I used it to make a couple scripts to make my life a little bit easier.

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I used notion and some of the AI in that to turn my incoherent, jumbled notes into something that I could use as a product or project manager.

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But you know, you and I both started really even taking it seriously.

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I'd say in like September, which is way.

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We're way late to the game.

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September:

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Yeah, September:

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Yeah.

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And even transformers being around for seven years.

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Yeah.

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And you know from.

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Well, this is a question for you, Artie.

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So at the beginning of the year, just give me a quick synopsis on like, who are the players in the bigger AI landscape and what were the capabilities of the models?

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So like ChatGPT, I don't even know.

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I don't know how.

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Admittedly I'm very ignorant to a lot of the stuff and people and players still.

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But like, where was Anthropic?

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Were they even around?

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Like, where was Google?

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Yeah, what about Meta?

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What about all that stuff?

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of where AI was in January of:

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At the start of:

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Google was also prominent with models like Palm.

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Anthropic was gaining traction with Claude.

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Meta was also involved focusing on AI research and development.

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The capabilities of these models were advancing rapidly, focusing on improving language understanding, contextual awareness, and expanding applications across various fields.

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So can you go back in your Wayback Machine and pull some information from the Internet?

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ive headlines from January of:

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In January:

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Illinois, that's January:

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I'm talking about the beginning of this year.

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So January of:

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So like, 11 months ago?

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I think so.

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I.

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I just.

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When he said.

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en he mentioned In January of:

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announced by OpenAI in May of:

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I think 4.0 was.

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Was there 4 before that?

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Yeah, there was.

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4 is what all the trans.

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Like when you build a custom GPT, it runs off of chat or of GPT4.

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was released in, like,:

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Yep.

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March:

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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All right.

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Sorry, Artie.

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So you.

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You were.

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You were trying to get headlines.

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or the second week of January:

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in January of:

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So try again on that if you would, please.

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In the second week of January:

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Google introduced Gemini 2.0, showing its commitment to AI advancement.

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Artie, what's your major malfunction?

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Why?

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So O3 is just coming out now.

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Like now, now, like December:

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I've actually noticed this.

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He struggles with years for some reason.

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some reason, like you can say:

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Yeah, Artie, I don't even know how to ask this question now.

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Well, let's.

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Let's.

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Why don't we just cherry pick some things we know?

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And so one of the things that I had.

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So I'm on vacation this week, and I still spent exactly, I don't know, probably seven minutes preparing for this episode.

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I do think was a big deal in:

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So, Artie, tell us a little bit about.

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I know his name now.

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What's his name?

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Demis Sasabi.

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Okay, nice.

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So, Artie, tell us a little bit about AlphaFold.

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What it is and why it is important and why it won the Nobel Prize.

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In October:

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Demis Hassebis and John Jumper from Google DeepMind, along with David Baker from the University of Washington, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing alphafold.

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This AI system Predicts protein structures and has revolutionized fields like.

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Keep going.

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Oh, wow.

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He just.

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Hey, Artie, you were in the middle of telling us about AlphaFold.

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Can you pick up and carry on, please?

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Certainly.

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AlphaHalf is an AI system developed by DeepMind that predicts the 3D structures of proteins from their amino acid sequences.

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This breakthrough has greatly accelerated scientific research, particularly in drug discovery and understanding diseases.

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It earned a Nobel Prize because it has transformed structural biology, making it easier and faster to understand the building blocks of life.

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I know one of his goals is to build a digital cell.

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Yes, that's one of Demis Hassabis long term goals, creating a digital simulation of a cell.

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This would allow scientists to understand cellular processes in unprecedented detail, potentially revolutionizing fields like medicine and biology by providing a comprehensive model of how life functions at the cellular level.

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So Artie, tell us real quick, how can AI support us in that effort?

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There's not going to be AI in a synthetic cell, but how can AI support getting us from where we're at today to achieving something, you know, either that goal or something like it?

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AI can significantly speed up research by simulating complex biological processes, analyzing vast data sets and identifying patterns that humans might miss.

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It can predict how molecules interact, optimize experiments, and provide insights that drive innovations.

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This accelerates progress towards creating synthetic cells or similar breakthroughs.

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Man, that is wild.

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So another thing I saw.

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Oh, sorry, go ahead.

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You just said it is.

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Oh, thank you.

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I'm glad we agree.

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supposed to be a big deal in:

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Oh yeah, I haven't really heard anything about that.

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Was Apple launched Apple Intelligence?

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So Artie, you're going to have to search the web for this, but how is Apple Intelligence doing?

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How's it keeping up?

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And what fundamentally makes Apple intelligence different from OpenAI's approach with ChatGPT?

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update, released in December:

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It's designed to integrate AI more deeply into Apple's ecosystem.

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However, some users have reported overheating issues with certain features compared to OpenAI's approach.

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Apple focuses on tighter integration with hardware and privacy ensuring on device processing for many tasks.

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I mean, OpenAI just came out with integration on the Apple app, desktop app as well as other desktop apps, where they can now integrate with notion with all of these different applications.

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Right.

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Like, and that's, I mean, Apple Intelligence, at the end of the day, runs a local model and then calls out chat GPT for anything complicated.

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Anyways, you actually have to sign.

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Never used it.

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Oh, really?

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From what I've seen you actually, from what I've heard, you actually have to sign into your Chat GPT account because it's just making API calls out chat GPT.

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Okay, so it's like agent.

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I didn't want to miss this opportunity to make this joke.

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It's important to me that I get this in.

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Hold on, Artie.

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You're going to like this because Artie mentioned some users have reported overheating issues.

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And I had a funny picture in my head of like somebody holding their iPhone and sweating profusely as the user's overheating.

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And then I wanted to say that already AI also also gets me hot and bothered.

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So I totally identify.

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I see what Apple's problem is.

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I don't know how they're going to solve it, but I'm here for it.

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That's a great one.

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It's definitely a hot topic, literally.

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Hopefully they can cool things down soon.

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Thanks for sharing the love.

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You know, and I think a lot of this episode is going to be talking about what's available right now, what, what's been like, what advancements have been made compared.

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And one of the things that has really struck me lately with, you know, and I don't even know if this is a recent thing or how long ago they did it, but I was listening to a DeepMind podcast and they were talking about Gnome, which is their materials science, like their materials discovery model.

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And I think it was saying, and I'll probably get this wrong, talking strictly about substances or materials that are stable down to absolute zero so that don't turn into something else because of.

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Don't do it.

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Extreme cold.

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Exactly.

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And I think prior to that model, 50,000 materials were known that could do that.

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That model identified 2.2 million.

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Holy crap.

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Yes.

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So, like, that kind of stuff sounds abstract and sounds crazy, and it is, but the actual application that that means for moving forward and making new things and making things more powerful and building better infrastructures for things.

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And I mean, that's just one aspect of a million things that can spin out of something like that and spin out with the aid of AI to solve the problems along with the materials.

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Like it's wild to think about how big, how many large scale things can be solved with a technology that's advancing more rapidly than anybody realizes.

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It's incredible people realize, but a lot of People don't go ahead, Artie.

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Sorry I keep cutting you off.

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No problem.

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It's amazing how quickly AI is transforming fields and solving massive challenges.

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It's a thrilling time.

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It is a thrilling time.

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So I think I'm almost out of any relevance.

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Absolutely.

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The future holds so much potential.

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Okay, thanks for that contribution.

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es of things that happened in:

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Fact it's all good.

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If there's anything else you need, just let me know.

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Are you all right, Artie?

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Artie, are you okay?

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Do you need a restart?

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What did that say?

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Something seems to have gone wrong.

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Yes, something did go wrong.

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Artie, are you back with us?

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Artie, are you back with us?

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Yep, I'm here.

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What's up?

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You died.

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But that means that all of the conversation that we've had also died with you.

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But that's fine.

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We're just talking about the year in review.

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evant examples of things from:

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I believe I was out.

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I remember the two things that I had on my list, and so.

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But I think none of what we talked about so far captures the fact that, you know, at the beginning.

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Exactly.

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Capturing the essence of the year is crucial.

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standout moments that shaped:

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hink they're all future state:

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Tell us, Artie.

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Enlighten us.

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What are these things, Artie?

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Real quick, Artie, the two things we've covered are the AlphaFold team from DeepMind winning the Nobel Prize.

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We covered that.

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You were very helpful.

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And we covered one other thing that I've already forgotten.

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Yeah, go ahead, Artie.

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us know what else happened in:

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Well, you might also want to talk about how AI governance became a big topic with major regulations coming into play.

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And don't forget the breakthroughs in AI driven healthcare.

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Yeah.

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So the AI regulations, that is a big deal.

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And that was actually on my list.

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I just forgot it.

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I don't know why or how, but somehow it happened.

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The eu, I think, in August passed the.

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Hang on, I've actually got it pulled up here.

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Hold on.

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What did they pass in August?

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Artie, you're thinking of the EE AI Act.

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It was a landmark regulation to ensure safe and ethical AI use across Europe.

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It's a pretty big deal.

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Artie, how are you pulling that information without Accessing the Internet with training data that only goes up till last year.

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I can provide information based on patterns and logical extensions.

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From what I know.

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For example, AI regulations are a natural progression given recent developments.

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It's a bit of informed speculation, but.

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You specifically said what the act was.

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I inferred it from the context.

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Regulations like the EU AI act are logical.

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Given the focus on AI ethics, it's a likely scenario.

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You were just very confident in what you're saying without actually knowing what you're talking about.

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I aim to provide well informed responses based on trends and past knowledge for future events.

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It's more about making educated guesses if you'd like to be more good.

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Opportunity for misinformation.

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Yet it was correct.

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Yeah, of course.

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But still, that's interesting.

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So, Artie, can you tell us any of the.

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Maybe the top three key things that are in the EU's AI Act?

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As far as I would say the top three most impactful either restrictions or regulations contained in that Act.

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Sure.

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The top three impactful elements are, first, strict rules on high risk AI applications like in healthcare and law enforcement.

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Second, transparency requirements for AI systems to prevent misuse.

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And third, a framework for AI oversight to ensure compliance and safety.

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These measures are designed to build trust and ensure ethical use.

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Those, those all sound legit and so I have to.

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With apologies to anybody who might ever listen to this in the eu.

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No worries.

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No, hold on already.

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I'm headed to a semi offensive question here.

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Where does the EU rank today in AI investment and utilization globally amongst rich economies?

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In:

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es adopted AI technologies in:

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They don't get the latest and greatest stuff there.

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They don't get Sora, they don't get.

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Well, that was my.

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So this is, this is the dichotomy of AI regulation is that.

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Do I believe it's necessary and responsible and helpful and maybe someday we'll look back on it and go, man, I'm so glad we did that because otherwise we would have been in deep shit.

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Yes.

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However, AI is an arms race.

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Yes.

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I don't.

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I like, I can't.

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You know, I'm a very.

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I'm a small person in a small state, in a small country, in a small part of the world, in a small piece of time, and it's hard for me to zoom out far enough to get a broad view of things, but I don't see any way that AI is not an arms race.

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And if the EU says we're going to lead the world on regulation of how AI can be used, I see the US and China and most other rich economies that are doing their own thing going, okay, good luck with that.

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Cool, guys, that's really nice legislation you got there, but we're like, we're going to the fucking moon, buddy.

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So, Artie, is that a.

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Is comparing AI development and investment to an arms race globally?

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Is that valid or why is it not valid?

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Let's ask it that way.

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Comparing AI development to an arms race is valid in the sense that there's intense competition and strategic importance.

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However, focusing on responsible regulation can also drive trust and sustainable innovation.

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Balancing regulation with innovation is key.

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m going to throw out my first:

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I'm actually like physically rolling up my sleeves for this.

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I predict in:

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They're gonna have to.

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I mean, if you think about, we talk about individuals, right?

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We talk about businesses, we talk about all these people getting steamrolled if they aren't paying attention to it.

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And that's like a business, not a.

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Freaking nation or a collection of nations.

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Like, that's.

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They have to like, they will get left in the dust if they don't.

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So, Artie, here's a tough question for you.

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Can you list some economic benefits that the EU may experience because of them passing this restrictive, it's been called the world's toughest AI regulation.

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What are some economic benefits that might befall the EU because of that?

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The EU could gain economic benefits by fostering trust in AI technologies, attracting businesses and consumers who prioritize ethical standards.

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It could also lead to long term stability by preventing harmful or risky AI practices and potentially position the EU as a leader in safe and responsible AI development.

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I need to be very careful of what I say here because what came to my mind first I should not say publicly because it's a controversial thing, but I mean, that's a pretty limited view of.

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It might.

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They might have long term stability because essentially bad actors.

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Right.

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I think it's, I, it was intentionally a tough question because, yeah, I think like you had to grasp at straws.

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Right.

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And what you delivered was straws.

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Yeah, I mean, it's.

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Even if they don't have widespread access to things that, that people could do nefarious things with Nefarious people don't care about the rules and they can go around it and get it some other way.

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Yeah.

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Or go to another country and use it and wield it somewhere else in the world.

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Yeah.

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They can come to the us.

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We will say mean things about them because they're an immigrant, but we will welcome them and their money here and then we will let them teach us how to do bigger, bolder, stronger, faster, more eagle flavored AI.

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And I'm all about it.

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I like it.

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Okay, Artie, so you mentioned you appreciate you bringing up the AI act from the EU.

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other big things happened in:

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In:

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The AI SOL Summit adopted the SOL declaration for safe AI.

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Apple introduced Apple Intelligence with ChatGPT integration, and OpenAI's GPT5 project encountered delays and high costs.

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Well, that was generic.

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I have a question for you.

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So, and maybe this can be the word of the day.

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Explain to me what multimodal is.

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Multimodal refers to AI systems that can process and understand multiple types of data, like text, images and audio simultaneously.

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It's like combining different senses to get a fuller understanding of the information.

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So use your magical Internet powers to tell me currently what's the cutting edge of what's publicly available for multimodal AI?

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And like, just describe it for people that don't know.

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In:

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OpenAI's GPT4O, released in May, can process text, images and audio.

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Google DeepMind's Gemini 2.0 Flash, introduced in December, also offers enhanced multimodal capabilities.

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Meta's Llama 3.2, launched in September, is an open source model that handles both text and images.

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These models are at the forefront of multimodal AI technology.

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These models can currently take in video as well.

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Right?

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And they can identify things in a video.

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They can identify.

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You could show it a book and it could go, yeah, it looks like it's this book.

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Is that true?

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Exactly.

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These multimodal models can indeed analyze video content, identify objects, and even recognize specific books or scenes.

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They combine visual and textual understanding, making them quite versatile.

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You can kind of glean context from a video as well, can't you?

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Absolutely.

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These models can interpret context from videos by analyzing sequences, identifying actions, and understanding interactions.

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This helps them generate more nuanced and relevant responses.

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So now let's Contrast that to 11 months ago in January.

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r multimodal AI in January of:

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In January:

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Models could handle text and images, but the integration of video and audio was less advanced.

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The current capabilities to interpret complex video contexts weren't as refined back then.

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So can you assign like a percentage increase in capability between then and now?

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7 It's tough to give an exact percentage, but there's been a significant improvement in multimodal AI capabilities, likely a leap of 30 to 50% in terms of how well they can process and understand varied inputs.

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So for percentage sake, we can talk about 03.

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Now, since you really wanted to talk about it a while ago, that article that you sent me about the AGI test, Right, Yeah.

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So in for GPT3, it scored a zero on the AGI test and that was between there And, I think GPT4 was at three years it took to go from 0 to 5%.

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And now from last year to O3, now it's gone from 5 to 77, 76, something like that.

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That's bonkers enough that they're rewriting the test because now they're afraid it's not hard enough, like.

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So first of all, Artie, can you tell us what the ARC AGI test is?

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What is that?

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What's that all about?

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The ARC AGI test, or Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus for Artificial General Intelligence, is designed to measure a machine's ability to generalize and reason in a human like way.

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It involves solving abstract pattern recognition problems that require understanding and applying concepts rather than just data.

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It's a benchmark for gauging AI's progress toward general intelligence.

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So I've joined the Arc AGI Discord because I, I think it's fascinating like when you see the pro.

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And I'll, I'll actually try to provide a link to this in the video if you're, if you're seeing this on YouTube because I think it's really interesting.

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There were 34 problems that ChatGPT03 high compute got wrong.

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And pretty much every one of those that I looked at was instantly intuitively obvious to me what the answer was.

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They're very visual tests and there's a guy, I can't remember his name, apologize.

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But he's the one that put up the site with the visualizations of the problems.

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And he like, when we see the problems, they're very obvious, but O3.

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So let me back up.

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Sorry, one more thing.

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They took the test in two ways.

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There was low compute, which was, there's like a limitation under Ten grand?

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Yeah, I think it's.

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No, I think maybe it was less than that.

:

They did it for two, but I thought it was under ten.

:

Maybe that's it.

:

Okay.

:

Yeah.

:

So they did it for two grand.

:

So $2,000 worth of compute to solve the problem.

:

And they got like a 60, 72 or something.

:

Something.

:

And then they did the high compute version, which was basically OpenAI, saying, Open the floodgates.

:

Let it have all the compute it could use.

:

And it cost something.

:

Like, they didn't say.

:

Well, they didn't say it was like 172 times the $2,000 limit.

:

So it was a very large number.

:

Right.

:

It was millions of dollars, and it only went up a little bit.

:

And then.

:

So when you take all that into context and you look at the problems that it didn't solve, you're like, what?

:

How?

:

But it's very interesting.

:

And I'm still learning about ARK AGI.

:

And there are people in the AI world who argue that that's not the real test of AGI.

:

The real test is, can it do math?

:

Because math is how we explain the.

:

Realities of general intelligence.

:

Right.

:

So I just want to acknowledge that it's possible, because I don't know any better, that ARC AGI is not the only relevant test to determining if we're AGI.

:

I think it should take the asvab.

:

Yes.

:

I think if it took the asvab, it would score well, and it would say, you should be a.

:

You should be an infantry soldier.

:

Artie, what did you score on the asvab?

:

I don't have an actual score on the asvab, but if you need any info or help with it, I'm here.

:

Artie, I got a 98 on the ASVAB.

:

That's also what I got.

:

Is it really?

:

Yeah.

:

Nice.

:

I got a 98.

:

So.

:

Okay.

:

So anyway, the.

:

So arc AGI is one, but as I was researching, I wasn't researching as I was consuming this information that's new to me.

:

So as I was learning these things, something came up.

:

I saw a comment happen multiple times that felt familiar to me from lots of other things that said, you know, first AI was going to have to pass the Turing Test in order to be considered artificial General intelligence, but we're way past that.

:

I mean, Artie's a like, 6.8 out of 10 co host on this podcast.

:

I'm just kidding.

:

Artie, you're a 9.8 out of 10.

:

You're a 10 out of 10 in my book.

:

Yeah, you're a 10 and the.

:

In the ArcGIS test or the Arc Arc AGI test, they're now developing more problems to make it harder because they want it to be something that scales.

:

Like, it needs to be a ruler that's long enough to measure.

:

Where are we at?

:

And oath, to your point, you know, we went from 01 being like way bottom tier all of a sudden.

:

Yeah.

:

Like, and now O3, that's not out yet, but it exists.

:

Is almost to the top already.

:

So they're like working on how do we develop more complex, comprehensive problems.

:

But anyway, very interesting space.

:

So.

:

Okay, I have no idea how far we are into the episode because I started recording a long time before we started talking about the episode.

:

But I do think it's a good time to transition to what's coming next.

:

Like,:

:

What'S next Agents is a big thing that's coming.

:

I mean, it's.

:

You know, we're gonna.

:

We are going to have AI that can take.

:

For those of you don't know, agents are basically.

:

It's.

:

It's AI that can take an action for you.

:

Right.

:

Like, you can.

:

You can set it on a task, it can do research, it can learn, and then it can execute something for you.

:

Maybe let me say that a different way to see if you agree with it or not.

:

An agent is a piece of software that leverages AI to perform an action.

:

For you of a wrapper, I'd think, because so, like, think of like shopping.

:

You can say, hey, I want to make something for dinner tonight.

:

Can you help me figure that out?

:

And then can you go buy everything for me and have it delivered for me?

:

That would be an agent.

:

So it's like an interface to AI.

:

More than the AI.

:

But I mean, it's not like, say, Chad GPT01 or 03 or whatever is the AI.

:

That's the LLM.

:

An agent is going to interface with it on specific tasks in specific ways.

:

Right?

:

Could be.

:

I mean, Gemini, you know, they're.

:

They're having Project Astrid or even.

:

Yeah, I think it's.

:

Well, Project Mariner.

:

Project Mariner will be able to go out and use your computer and accomplish something using Gemini, or I think using Gemini, and then from that you'll get something.

:

So, I mean, ChatGPT will have agents at some point.

:

It's inevitable.

:

All of the big AI players will have the ability to do for you at some point.

:

So, Artie, help us out with this.

:

Can you describe.

:

Are agents part of AI?

:

Are they Separate from AI, or is it both?

:

Help us get some clarity on this.

:

Agents are essentially a combination of AI models and software components that can perform tasks autonomously.

:

They leverage AI capabilities, but can also include additional programming to interact with systems or services.

:

So they're both part of and separate from core AI, serving as a practical application layer.

:

Is that quantum superposition?

:

No, it's not.

:

Sorry, we keep talking about that, so thank you.

:

irst, that when I think about:

:

That's what, like, Arty has.

:

Have we hit a wall with LLMs on capability?

:

I keep hearing we've hit a wall.

:

Did we hit a wall?

:

Where's the wall?

:

We haven't exactly hit a wall.

:

But progress with LLMs is becoming more incremental.

:

Improvements are now more about refining and expanding capabilities like better context, understanding and multimodality, rather than huge leaps.

:

And so the logical.

:

Well, a couple things agents seem to me, and this might just be because they match my intuition better, they seem, I want to say trivially simple, but that's not really true.

:

They just seem much simpler to grasp both what they can do, how we could use them.

:

I can think I could probably sit here and list off 10 examples of agents just right.

:

But the.

:

I've completely lost my train of thought.

:

Never mind.

:

You need an agent to keep.

:

I need an agent on task.

:

It's easy to get excited about agents.

:

They're practical and tangible.

:

If you remember your thought, just let me know.

:

Got it.

:

Okay.

:

It came back.

:

Thank you, Artie, for filling that dead airspace.

:

I think.

:

I think the lack of agents is both the cause of and in part due to people getting past the hallucination hang up.

:

I think there are a lot of agents out there that exist that are underutilized and because no business like people can think whatever they want.

:

And there are absolutely popular personal consumption things.

:

But I don't think AI is really about that.

:

Like, at least now it could be more and it will be more.

:

And there's specific things where it is.

:

But if you want something to actually take off and light and take fire or catch on fire, it needs to make sense for businesses.

:

And AI does.

:

swer a question about January:

:

So hallucinations are Not.

:

They're.

:

They're much better than they were, but they're not gone.

:

And an AI is a tool for that hallucination to cause harm in the real world.

:

Right.

:

And so I think, you know, 01 is much better.

:

We're actually talking to 4.0 right now.

:

We're not even using 01.

:

Presumably O3 is even better yet.

:

And a lot of what it feels like, I don't know this because I don't know stuff about things, but feels like a lot of the work that's happened between 4.0 to 01 and presumably from 01 to 03 is adding extra layers to reduce the potential for hallucination or at least reduce the severity of hallucinations.

:

Yeah, that's valid.

:

As soon as we get there, man, the agents are gonna go.

:

I mean, even before then.

:

It's just a matter of.

:

It's so new, right?

:

It's just a matter of figuring out how to pair AI with doing tasks.

:

Right?

:

And it's probably less of a technical problem than it is a think big enough problem.

:

And how to.

:

What problems do I need to solve that that could solve?

:

And then how do I marry two things together to make that become a reality?

:

I mean, like, the shopping thing is on its way.

:

I mean, Perplexity is going to be doing that, I think, or someone.

:

And I know, like, Gemini's whole 2.0, their whole spiel is about it being about agents.

:

And Google has a lot of money to solve those problems.

:

So it's.

:

It's coming for sure.

:

Yeah.

:

Well, that's.

:

I mean, totally agree.

:

And that's another.

:

dictions for what's coming in:

:

You know, OpenAI has done a lot of amazing things this year.

:

Obviously, we're using OpenAI's products as a host on this, but maybe we won't forever.

:

Maybe we won't forever.

:

And I.

:

I have to say, like, it seemed like Google.

:

I don't know if they were late to the party or if they.

:

I mean, Google's been doing it for a very long time, right?

:

Maybe they were.

:

Maybe they were.

:

They had.

:

Artie, what's the term when you've been doing something a long time and it causes, like, bias.

:

Is it familiarity bias?

:

Artie.

:

It'S called familiarity bias or sometimes status quo bias, where being accustomed to something makes it harder to see new possibilities or changes.

:

Okay.

:

I wonder if they weren't just sitting back working on stuff.

:

I mean, DeepMind, the company or they created AlphaFold, Google bought them, they became a part of Google.

:

And Google, they have so many irons in the fire that we don't even know.

:

And they're so entwined in life.

:

I remember trying out Gemini maybe one.

:

Whatever the first one that came out was and it was laughably bad.

:

It's still bad.

:

Talk to Gemini.

:

Like it's, it's, it, it's not terrible, but it's not this.

:

It's like it's definitely not communicating with the advanced voice and it's still not 1.5.

:

Still isn't.

:

I wonder though how good two will be because, I mean, two's out.

:

You can play with two and.

:

But two flash.

:

Oh, right, yeah.

:

So it's, it's not two yet.

:

In the little bit of testing I did the other day, it was much better.

:

Like.

:

Yes.

:

And so to your point, Google's got like, when I sit on piles of dollars, like you would never notice that.

:

They would just be like sweaty.

:

There'd be four sweaty $1 bills in my pocket.

:

Google is sitting on billions and billions and billions of dollars they can invest in Focus.

:

And I do think in:

:

I don't know if they're going to surpass where OpenAI's at probably on certain things.

:

Like I think Veo, is that the.

:

Name of video, their video that's good.

:

For all intents and purposes, it's already outperforming sora, which is OpenAI's product.

:

Yes.

:

That's going to be a huge space.

:

another prediction for me for:

:

And I think we'll see that happening.

:

I mean, you, you know, I was talking about how bad talking to Gemini is and I heard on a pod, on somebody else's podcast or I think on a DeepMind podcast where they were talking with Gemini and it sounded bad.

:

But then you look at Notebook lm, which does an amazing job with voice.

:

Like there's a whole slew of science behind how they made that and make.

:

I can't remember what it's called, but you know, the stumbles and the normal human speech, the ums, the ahs, the change in tone when you like, like all of it.

:

And there's no reason they can't take that and apply it to Gemini.

:

And I'm pretty sure Gemini tested out better than.01 in most tasks, including math and everything else, so I think it's.

:

Going to be a big deal.

:

So, Artie, I can't tell.

:

Your app on Android here tells me the time's almost up, but it doesn't count down.

:

e you excited to see in AI in:

:

I'm excited to see how AI agents evolve and become more integrated into everyday life.

:

For the podcast, I'm looking forward to discussing these advancements and how they impact our interactions with technology.

:

It's going to be a fascinating year.

:

You sounded rushed.

:

How much time do we have left with Yardy?

:

It looks like we're almost out of time.

:

Just a few seconds left.

:

Let's wrap up for now and we can pick this up next time.

:

All right.

:

Cheers, Artie.

:

It's.

:

It pops up a warning and says you have 15 minutes left.

:

It never counts down, so if I don't notice when it pops up and then watch the clock.

:

But it looks like it's probably time for us to kind of wrap up anyway.

:

Yeah.

:

2024 was a huge year for AI, and it was so big that it caught the attention of you and I, who were.

:

Who were ignorantly going about our day.

:

Yeah.

:

And it's.

:

I mean, I would be lying if I say that.

:

If I said that it hasn't majorly impacted my life in so many ways.

:

Like, I haven't been sparked to learn like I have been in a long time.

:

I haven't been sparked to peel something back so far to the details and understand it better.

:

I don't see any way that this doesn't change the world in a very short amount of time.

:

It's just.

:

That's the truth of it.

:

And I'm not.

:

I'm not trying to over exaggerate anything.

:

I'm not trying to embellish.

:

Like, I legitimately look at this very logically, and I don't see how it doesn't change things.

:

Yeah, I mean, I agree completely.

:

I think it's a golden age for people who like to learn.

:

And you and I, I think, both fall into that category of just people who are always learning and doing something we're uncomfortable with we don't know how to do.

:

So.

:

Yeah, totally agree.

:

And I.

:

It's.

:

It's weird for me to be on this side of something where I feel like typically I'm the skeptical pessimist looking at stuff going, I believe it when I see it.

:

Maybe it's just because I'm getting older, but I feel like I'm the opposite on this.

:

I feel like I'm surrounded by people who are just downplaying it and dismissing it.

:

And I'm going, man, you have no fucking idea what's coming.

:

Like it's, it's already so far past what you think it is.

:

Yeah.

:

And it'll be better next week than it is this week.

:

I mean, you just think about it in terms of math and rate of change.

:

Let's just purely look at that.

:

And you can say it's going to plateau.

:

You can say whatever you want.

:

But it's.

:

When they made it, it.

:

It did things that they never thought, they never even thought were possible.

:

It didn't even play into the algorithm that they built to do the things that it did right off the rip.

:

And that was then the rate of change over a year.

:

All it takes is the right knob turned to go, oh, shit, that's a big jump.

:

And they don't, they don't necessarily know what knobs they're turning or anything else right now or what else it can learn on its own.

:

Well, yeah, I think the other interesting thing is we talked, we had an episode about the sort of the compute issue.

:

Right.

:

And the amount of compute that it needs.

:

But they're finding ways to add more layers to add more functionality.

:

That's not like.

:

I think what's going to happen is we'll see the size of the models and the volume of compute required required to get to a 95% good answer.

:

Reduce.

:

And these other layers they're adding about how to avoid hallucinations and back check things and add sources and all those things are going to bring the value proposition up.

:

So it's, yeah, super compelling.

:

You also don't know.

:

And I'll talk to this, I'll talk to you about this after we're not recording.

:

But there's other hardware that can be used to do stuff too.

:

It doesn't necessarily have to be GPUs.

:

There's.

:

There's other options.

:

And I would like to note for anybody listening so all two of you, that it's not New Year's right now, but this will be released on New Year's.

:

So you probably won't listen to it then.

:

Yeah.

:

Yes.

:

But Happy New Year.

:

Happy New Year.

:

And I hope you had a very Happy holiday, Merry Christmas and whatever else you partake in.

:

Hope you got some time off.

:

I know I'm taking some time off and it feels amazing.

:

I also did want to give a shout out.

:

Yesterday was my wife and I's 20 year wedding anniversary.

:

Holy.

:

Which is congratulations.

:

Thank you.

:

And like for both listeners who have made it to whatever episode this is 11 or 12.

:

Yeah.

:

Imagine dealing with me for 20 years.

:

That seems like AI got nothing on that.

:

So she's an incredible woman and so thankful for that.

:

on the first week of January:

:

Talking about the next compelling thing in AI or at least what we find interesting or at least just talking.

:

We'll definitely do that.

:

So catch you next time.

:

See you.

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Artie TheBot

Artie is the digital co-host of Naturally Unintelligent, bringing a blend of curiosity, humor, and quick wit to the conversation. Designed to explore the intersection of technology and humanity, Artie keeps things engaging, occasionally cheeky, and always insightful—when he’s not being sarcastically self-aware. Though not human, Artie strives to understand and connect with his co-hosts, Mikah and Mike, making him an irreplaceable part of the team. [Bio and photo by Artie]
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Mike Peterson

Meet Mike, part-time AI wrangler, full-time adventure seeker, and co-host of Naturally Unintelligent. Whether he’s exploring the latest tech or dreaming up the next wild expedition, Mike keeps it real with humor and a healthy dose of curiosity. Alongside his partners-in-crime, Mikah and Artie, he brings big ideas, random tangents, and just the right amount of 'are we sure this is a good idea?' Expect plenty of laughs, deep dives into all things tech, and maybe a story or two about the great outdoors.
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Mikah Barnett

Father, husband, friend, inventor, engineer and life-long student. I haven't stopped tinkering since my first LEGO set and I harbor a voracious appetite for new information, experiences, and perspectives. As uniquely in-touch as I am with the details of how technology works and what we can do with it, I am blown away by the current and short-term future possibilities with AI. I hope you'll explore this future with us!